Poland may ease KGHM's mining tax in 2017 -minister

WARSAW, Sept 12 (Reuters) - Poland may provide the country's
sole copper producer KGHM relief next year on a 2012
tax that eats into the miner's profits, Treasury Minister Dawid
Jackiewicz told Wprost weekly in an interview published on
Monday.

The ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party moved to power in
last year's elections, on among other things a promise of
scrapping the levy on mining income. But the budgets for this
year and next are still counting on revenue from that tax.

"We do not pull back from that promise (for tax relief). It
is only a matter of time when we will try to ease the dimension
of the tax, and perhaps then eliminate it," Jackiewicz said.

"Definitely by the end of the government's term, and perhaps
already in 2017 there will be a serious relief," he said.

Jackiewicz also said KGHM should keep its Chilean assets,
even though PiS earlier questioned the purchase of a Canadian
company that gave the Polish miner partial ownership of the
Sierra Gorda copper mine and launched an investigation into
whether the acquisition was justified.

"I would like us to stay in Chile, in Sierra Gorda, but this
requires serious work out there and many talks - with Sumitomo,
banks and probably with Chile's government about possible
relief, since we are in an extraordinary situation," Jackiewicz
said.